“The defendant saved that guard’s life!” Clayton insisted.
Banging his gavel forcefully, Plover ordered Clayton out of the courtroom. The deputy marshal had no choice but to do as he was ordered. “Now then,” Plover said after Clayton was gone, “we’ll get on with this trial.” He ordered the defendant to stand for sentencing. Addressing Clint, he proceeded. “Clint Allen Conner, it is the ruling of this court that you shall be returned to the Wyoming Territorial Prison, where you will serve the remaining three years and one month of your original sentence. In addition, you will serve two years in punishment for your escape and five years for the attempted assault on the guard.” He banged his gavel down. “This case is closed,” he announced, then after a smirk in Clint’s direction, he walked out the side door.
Unable to believe what had just happened, Clint sat down heavily in his chair, staring at the door that Plover had just exited. Just as stunned, the sheriff looked down at him, wide-eyed with shock. “Damn, boy, he threw everythin’ but the kitchen stove at you. He sure had it in for you.”
Clint didn’t speak for a few moments, still trying to right his tumbled mind. Then he looked up at Bridges and said woefully, “It was his horse I stole.”
The rest of that day was a tornado of conflicting thoughts that left Clint in a state of despair. Feeling betrayed, by Clayton as well as the vengeful judge, he cursed himself for allowing the marshal to bring him back to Cheyenne. Thinking he had been sentenced unfairly the first time, he had permitted himself to be persuaded to seek restitution from the court, aided by his deeds of compassion for the officers of the law. Looking back, now that it was too late, he thought himself a fool for swallowing Clayton’s promises of redemption.
Sheriff Bridges was quite contrite about the heavy sentence Plover had laid down for his young prisoner, and tried to make up for it somewhat by arranging for a special supper from the hotel kitchen. With no interest in food, Clint ate but a small portion of it. Clayton came to visit him just before supper. Even though he explained to Clint that he had been trying to gain an audience with Judge Wingate all afternoon, he could see the complete reversal of Clint’s attitude toward him. “I won’t forget you,” he said in parting. “As soon as I can see him, I’ll get the facts to Judge Wingate.” Growing more bitter by the minute, Clint didn’t respond, sitting glassy-eyed on his cot as Clayton closed the cell room door behind him.
Later that evening, the sheriff came in to see him. With him, Clint saw a big rawboned man wearing a deputy’s badge. “This here’s Roy Spade, one of my deputies,” Bridges said. “He’ll be escortin’ you on the noon train to Laramie tomorrow mornin’.”
In contrast to the sheriff, Spade eyeballed Clint with a curled-lip look of contempt. He stepped up close to the bars of Clint’s cell. “Just so you know, jailbird, I don’t tolerate no trouble from jaspers like you. So it’s up to you. We can have us a peaceable little ride up to Laramie if you behave. If you don’t, I’ll break a gun barrel across your skull and deliver you in a box. You got that?” He waited for Clint’s response. When several minutes passed without one, save the unwavering glare of the prisoner’s eyes, Spade turned and left the cell room, saying, “You just remember what I told you.”
The next day, it was Zach Clayton who brought Clint his breakfast, and sat talking to him while he ate. Overnight, Clint had thought about what had happened and realized that he had probably been wrong in thinking Clayton betrayed him. Still, he had abandoned all hope of having Plover’s decision reversed, and the prospect of ten more years in prison loomed before him as the end of all the dreams he had allowed himself during the past few weeks.
About a half hour before noon, Roy Spade came in. “Where the hell have you been?” Bridges demanded. “I told you to be here thirty minutes ago.”
“Hell, it’s still half an hour before the train gets here, if it’s on time, and it don’t take but ten minutes to walk to the station.” He took the cell key off a peg and went to Clint’s cell. “Let’s go, jailbird.” He grinned at Bridges as he walked by.
“Have you been drinkin’?” the sheriff asked accusingly, detecting a whiff of alcohol.
“Hell no,” Spade responded. “I stopped in the Silver Dollar for one little shooter this mornin’, and that’s all.”
Bridges was still suspicious, but it was too late to do anything about it if Spade had been drinking. His other deputy had gone out to check on a report of cattle thieves operating near the Rocking-M Ranch. He watched Spade pull Clint’s hands behind his back and cuff him. He seemed steady enough, so the sheriff decided Spade was probably telling him the truth.
“Come on, jailbird,” Spade goaded, grabbing Clint by the arm and giving him a forceful shove toward the door.
It was only a short walk to the end of the street and the train depot. There were a handful of people on the street, and they all stopped to gawk at the deputy and his handcuffed prisoner as they passed. A couple of small boys ran along beside them all the way to the depot. Posturing for their benefit, Spade frequently gave Clint a shove in the back, usually accompanied by a mischievous grin. Clint took it in silence, even when he almost stumbled once when Spade was especially rough. All the while Clint cursed himself for willfully putting himself in this position.
The train for Laramie pulled in at about twenty-five after twelve, which the stationmaster maintained was pretty much on time for the noon train. Spade complained, anyway. He would be staying overnight in Laramie and catching a train back the next day. And the sooner he got to Laramie, the sooner he could get rid of his prisoner and hit the saloons.
He led Clint down the track to the last car. The first step was knee high, and with his hands behind his back, Clint couldn’t step up on it. Spade cursed him as if it were his fault. “I can’t sit down in a seat with my hands behind my back, anyway,” Clint complained. “If you handcuff me with my hands in front, I can grab the handrail and get on the train, and I can sit down after we get on.”
“Did I ask you anything?” Spade shot back. “You think you’re the first son of a bitch I’ve had to take to Laramie? Turn around!” He spun Clint around roughly, grabbed his wrists, and unlocked the cuffs. Spinning him back around to face him, he said, “Stick your damn hands up here.” It happened faster than Spade’s alcohol-addled brain could react. Clint brought his hands up as he had been ordered, but to Spade’s surprise, his own revolver was in one of them, the barrel looking him in the face. “What tha . . . ?” Spade blurted, and slapped his hand on his empty holster.
Stunned by the suddenness of Clint’s move, Spade stared wide-eyed at the ominous pistol muzzle aimed at his eye. He made no move to resist when Clint took the key from his fingers. Finding his voice at last, he said, “You ain’t gettin’ away with this, you damn fool.”
“Shut up,” Clint ordered. “Put your hand in there. Make no mistake about it, I’ll blow a hole in your head before I’ll go back to that prison.” The resolve in his eye convinced Spade that he meant what he said. The deputy stuck his hand out and winced as Clint closed the cuff around his wrist. He then pulled the other cuff through the handrail and ordered Spade to put his other wrist up.
“You can’t do that!” Spade complained. “I ain’t gonna be handcuffed to no damn train.”
“You rather be shot down beside it? All the same to me.” He pressed the pistol against Spade’s forehead.
“Wait! Wait, dammit!” Spade exclaimed, and held up his wrist. Clint locked the cuff and stepped back as he heard the conductor’s call to board. “We’ll hunt you down for this,” Spade threatened. “You’re as good as dead.”
Clint shoved the deputy’s pistol in his belt. “You’re a pretty big asshole, but I don’t know if you’re man enough to hold back a train. I’d say you’d best hop up on that step unless you wanna be dragged to Laramie.” After a couple of loud blasts from the engineer’s whistle, the engine roared into life, and the passenger cars started slowly rolling, leaving Spade no choice but to leap aboard.
Clint stood beside the tracks and watched as the train picked up speed, and Spade yelled wildly at every person standing on the platform.
“What was he hollerin’ about?” an elderly man who had just gotten off in Cheyenne asked Clint when he walked by.
“I don’t know,” Clint replied, and kept walking. “I reckon it’s his first train ride.”
Taking care to walk unhurriedly back from the depot, he went around behind the jail, and proceeded to the end of the street and the stables. Entering the rear of the stable, he pulled Spade’s pistol from his belt and stopped just inside the door, scanning the interior of the building. The owner, who had seen Clint and Clayton when they had left Rowdy to be boarded, was nowhere in sight. Instead, the stable was left in the care of a boy of sixteen or seventeen. Clint stuck the pistol back in his belt.
Walking nonchalantly between the stalls, he approached the boy. “I’ve come to pick up a horse,” Clint said, “that buckskin yonder in the corral.” When the boy appeared uncertain about the request, Clint went on. “Sheriff Bridges sent me to get the horse—belonged to a prisoner that just left on the noon train. There oughta be a saddle in the tack room. I’ll get it.” He walked on past the hesitant boy on his way to the tack room. “Well, hop to it, boy, the sheriff said right away.”
“Mr. Bailey’s gone to dinner,” the boy said. “He oughta be back pretty soon.” He was obviously uncomfortable about someone riding off on one of the horses.
“Don’t have time to wait for Bailey,” Clint replied. “He knows about it, anyway. Sheriff Bridges will be by to make it right.” He smiled at the cautious youngster. “Now, how ’bout helpin’ me out and cut that buckskin outta there? I’m kinda in a hurry.”
Deciding that it must be all right if the sheriff sent the stranger over, the boy dropped the pitchfork he had been employing and hopped over the rails. He watched as Clint saddled Rowdy. “That Winchester and the gun belt was supposed to be took over to the sheriff’s office,” the boy pointed out. “I was fixin’ to do it today,” he lied.
“Don’t worry about it,” Clint assured him. “I’ll see that it gets where it’s supposed to.” He stepped up in the saddle and wheeled Rowdy around.
“You say Sheriff Bridges is comin’ by to settle with Mr. Bailey?” the boy asked, seeking confirmation.
“You can count on it,” Clint said. “Bridges will be by.” Past ready to leave, Rowdy leaped forward as soon as he felt the slight pressure of Clint’s heels. Happy to be reunited, the two partners left the dust of Cheyenne behind them.
Riding free again over the rolling grass prairie, Clint felt a strong temptation to visit his father one last time, but there was the need to gain as much distance as he could from those who were certain to chase him. The sheriff and a posse, possibly Zach Clayton again, they would be on his trail soon. And his father’s place was not far enough from Cheyenne to hazard a stop there now. It was too bad, he told himself, for he could have gotten some supplies from his father. He wouldn’t suffer for food, anyway, since he had his rifle back.
The thing he must now decide was where he would run to. Clayton knew his heart yearned to return to Montana and the woman waiting there for him. Clayton was bound to show up at Frederick Steiner’s farm sometime. Consequently, that’s the last place Clint should go. But the need to see Joanna seemed to have intensified tenfold since his second escape, and he felt he owed it to her to somehow get word to her. Ever since he had left her, he felt an aching deep inside to see her again. Never having felt that way for anyone before, he was pressed to admit that he was in love. In love. Even the words seemed strange to him. Whatever the affliction, he knew that he wanted to be with her more than anything else. Still, he could not in good conscience bring his troubles to roost on the Steiner brothers. I’ll make up my mind later on, he told himself. For now, he would just continue to ride north.
Riding horseback from Cheyenne to Laramie, Zach Clayton arrived at the Wyoming Territorial Prison a couple of hours past dinnertime. He went straight to the warden’s office with the intention of persuading Boswell to do what he could to make Clint Conner’s life easier—hopefully, even convince the warden to help with an appeal for a new trial. He was not prepared for the news awaiting him.
Warden Boswell greeted him cordially as usual, but interrupted when Clayton began his plea on behalf of the returned prisoner, Conner. “I’m sure Conner is one helluva deserving inmate,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is that I don’t have a prisoner by that name at the present time. I do have a fugitive by that name who’s still very much at large.”
Confused, Clayton responded, “Whaddaya mean, Warden? Clint Conner was tried and sentenced day before yesterday. One of Quinton Bridges’ deputies brought him here yesterday afternoon.”
“Well, now, one of his deputies—name of Spade—brought in a railroad car he had evidently arrested. At least he was handcuffed to the handrail.” He sat observing a stunned deputy marshal for a few moments. “So from where I’m settin’, nothin’s changed in the status of my two escaped convicts. Ballenger and Conner are still runnin’ loose. The proper thing to do is to turn it over to the chief justice in Montana Territory to put one of his marshals on their trail. They’ve already wired about a couple of bank holdups. Last week two men in Helena held a pistol to the cashier’s head and got away with forty-seven hundred dollars in cash. They escaped on horseback.” He studied Clayton’s reactions to the news before continuing. “Maybe one of their men might have better luck in running Ballenger to ground.”
It was a stinging rebuke from a man from whom he had always enjoyed respect and friendship. Clayton got his hackles up a bit. “Dammit, Warden, I brought Conner in. It’s not my fault Spade lost him. But if you think another marshal can do a better job, then go ahead and ask for one.”
A hint of a smile appeared on Boswell’s face. “Why don’t you just go ahead and track him down again, but next time, bring him on back here? I don’t see why there needed to be a trial, anyway. A convict escapes from here, we just catch him and throw him back in a cell again.”
Leaving Boswell’s office, Clayton wasn’t sure he wanted to go after Clint again. The young man didn’t deserve to be incarcerated. He wasn’t an outlaw. He might have told Boswell to go ahead and get another marshal to do the job, but if the law demanded that Clint had to be apprehended, Clayton preferred to be the one to do it. He felt that he owed Clint. Another lawman might be inclined to shoot first and ask questions later.
As far as Ballenger was concerned, that was a different story. Clayton wanted him badly, if for no other reason than the fact the son of a bitch shot his horse. Ballenger was a menace to the civilized world, a plague upon honest men and women. So Clayton would go again. He would pack up his war bag and his bedroll and start out for Yellowstone country once more. Ballenger and the piece of dung he rode with would show up sooner or later. And he wanted to be there when he did. His gut feeling told him that Ballenger and Yancey would be intent upon putting some distance between themselves and Helena if they were the two who pulled that bank job. Where would they go? Butte, maybe, but with plenty of cash, more likely some of the smaller towns back east. There were dozens of little settlements along the Yellowstone where a couple of outlaws could work their trade.
It was settled then. He would concentrate on finding Ballenger and Yancey, since they were a menace to society. Clint would have to wait. If he disappeared into Canada or somewhere, that was the chance Clayton would have to take. The other two were more important.
Chapter 13
Clell Ballenger braced himself in the stirrups against his horse’s steep descent down a rocky slide to the bottom of the canyon. Small pebbles and loose shale cascaded around the horse’s hooves, kicked up by Yancey’s horse behind him. Reaching the floor of the canyon, he urged the horse onward, following the narrow canyon, reluctant to stop to rest the animal. It was not a sound idea for a couple of bank robbers to hang around Helena. The town had proper law now, but i
t wasn’t that far removed from its vigilante days, and vigilantes were prone to hang any outlaws they caught.
“Clell!” Yancey called out from behind. “Let up, my horse is give out.”
Ballenger pulled back on the reins to let Yancey catch up. “All right,” he said, “I reckon we’d better rest ’em before we find ourselves walkin’ outta these mountains.” He looked back over the way they had come. “I think we got away clean. If anybody’s on our tail, they’re a helluva long way back.” Both horses walked along slowly now, their heads drooping from the long, hard ride with no stops for rest. “That looks like some sorta spring or somethin’ up ahead. We’ll water the horses there.”
“We’d better,” Yancey said. “I wasn’t far from havin’ to tote mine on my back.” He was ready for a rest himself. The wound in his shoulder, though healing well enough, still caused him some pain.
A small spring worked its way down through a notch in the canyon wall to form a small pool big enough for both horses to drink at the same time. While the weary mounts eagerly quenched their thirst, Ballenger and Yancey sat down with their backs propped against a large rock. Ballenger pulled a pouch from his coat pocket, reached in to extract a generous pinch of tobacco, and stuffed it in his mouth. He tossed the pouch to Yancey while he worked up his chew. Yancey stuffed his jaw with a chew as well, then leaned back against the rock. After a few moments while both men took turns spitting at the same rock on the edge of the spring, Yancey spoke.
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